First-hand experience: former resident startupper appointed science director of biomed cluster

20 октября 2016 г.

Elmira Safarova, the recently appointed science director of the Skolkovo Foundation’s biomed cluster, has a unique perspective in her new role: in her last job, she was head of a startup that had resident status within the foundation.

Elmira Safarova,  the new science director of the Skolkovo Foundation's biomed cluster. Photo: Sk.ru.

This summer, when BIND Therapeutics – the U.S. parent company of that startup, BIND (RUS) – got approval for takeover by pharma heavyweight Pfizer, Safarova crossed over the dividing line to join the team of the Skolkovo Foundation itself.

Her experience from both within the foundation and as a resident startup has given her a well-rounded picture of the foundation’s role – and it is not, she says, what most people think.

“Skolkovo isn’t [just] a grant-giver; it’s an environment for developing projects,” says Safarova. 

Although BIND (RUS) – a company working on targeted drug therapy, in which medicines are used to treat specific cells and organs – found Skolkovo’s support “very useful,” that support was not financial, she explained.

“We didn’t need money, as we were very lucky with our parent company – we could afford to focus on science alone. But again, Skolkovo isn’t just a grant-giver. Its brilliance lies in the concentrated environment that helps you do what the company was set up for: to commercialise your scientific ideas. Skolkovo hosts a huge number of events … it provides networks, investors, meetings with them, conferences and publications of trend overviews,” she said.

Safarova has a unique perspective on the Skolkovo Foundation, having previously headed a resident startup. Photo: Sk.ru.

Setting priorities

As science director, Safarova’s official job description is “to implement the innovations priorities, and analyse and attract projects that have the most potential both in terms of scientific breakthrough and for commercialization, in keeping with the cluster’s foresights,” as the priority areas of activity identified by each cluster are known.

In practice, that means, in Safarova’s words, that “I will at last be able to read visionary reports as part of my work,” she laughs, adding that it is one of the most interesting parts of the job.

“Day-to-day practice doesn’t leave much time for that, so I’m glad, because the volume of information available today is so huge that people just don’t have time to process it, never mind take it in,” she said.

“Visionary reports help expand the horizons of our creativity, and help us to think outside the framework of our education, which is very important, as it can be difficult to step outside our usual way of thinking,” says Safarova.

In terms of concrete areas of focus, the new science director has her eye on gene editing, a topic that has made headlines around the world in recent months.

“It scares people, but I think the future lies that way, and in personalised lifestyles too: not just personalised medicine, but personalized food items, care products and so on,” she said.

The biomed cluster is already home to companies working in these areas, such as Knomics, which analyses bacteria in people’s microbiomes in order to produce personalised dietary recommendations for them. 

Insider’s perspective

On a day-to-day basis, Safarova will oversee all the 338 resident companies of the biomed cluster, which includes an agro subdivision added last year. One of the factors she is on the lookout for is how they can be “intermarried” and incubated – a process she compares to “making the right soup from the ingredients.”

“It’s like when you stand in the shop and you see chicken, noodles and carrots. If I want to, I can add beetroot and make borsch – or I can make chicken noodle soup. As the cook, I have to decide what I will make from the selection of ingredients. Or maybe they’re not even worth putting together in a saucepan, because they’re not fresh enough,” she says.

Incubation and acceleration are the main focus of the cluster’s activity, says Safarova, adding that as the CEO of a resident company that already had all the advantages of being the daughter company of an established U.S. firm, she did not fully appreciate the extent of Skolkovo’s activity in these areas until she joined the foundation’s staff.

“I felt support [as a resident], but I didn’t think of acceleration as such as being a core competency of Skolkovo. But it seems we [BIND (RUS)] were an exception. When I came here, I was surprised to see that people spend 80-90 percent of their time on acceleration, incubation and mentoring,” she said.

A Tel Aviv market. Next month, a Skolkovo biomed delegation will visit Israel. "It's a country with both excellent medicine and agriculture: the two areas that our cluster strives to develop," says Safarova. Photo: Flickr.

Expanding borders

Having also worked for the U.S. pharma giant Johnson & Johnson and the U.K.-headquartered AstraZeneca, Safarova now plans to put her international experience to use in achieving another of the Skolkovo Foundation’s ongoing goals: cooperation with the innovations ecosystems of other countries.

With this aim, the biomed cluster is preparing for a business mission to Israel in mid-November.

“It’s a country with both excellent medicine and agriculture: the two areas that our cluster strives to develop,” says Safarova, adding that the mission has three primary aims.

“Firstly, to find venture funds that will support our startups. Israel is a country that has united people who had no commercial expertise but have started achieving breakthroughs in the space of 20 years. All the latest deals in biomed and IT were done in Israel, and all the major U.S. venture funds are there,” she explains.

Secondly, Safarova wants to know more about how the tiny Middle Eastern country dubbed the “startup nation” achieved this. 

“Of course, a lot of money was allocated for it, and we are in a similar situation, but our practical tools that would make such a ‘kickoff’ possible are not as developed. I want to know more about the tools they used, the accelerators and incubators,” she says. 

“Thirdly is science. It’s idiotic to only work on science in Russia. Supporting a company that is aimed primarily at import substitution is strategically wrong. If you’re going to play [on the market], then you should aim big … so I’m also hoping for some scientific collaboration between our startups and Israeli scientists,” said Safarova.

“Every country has its strengths, such as Israel at medicine and pharma, U.S. at venture capitalism,” she said, explaining that the cluster will try to learn from other countries the skills at which those countries excel.

In the meantime, the new science director has her work cut out closer to home – making startup soup.